2024

This annual lecture series showcases the latest work of renowned Australian architects.

For more than two decades the National Gallery has proudly partnered with the Australian Institute of Architects (ACT Chapter) to present the Contemporary Australian Architects Speaker Series.

Season tickets include access to all four lectures.

Early Bird season ticket discount available only until Wednesday 28 August 2024.

$145 (Early Bird $116) standard

$116 (Early Bird $93) concession

$116 (Early Bird $93) Institute and National Gallery Member

$75 (Early Bird $60) students

Single tickets are available for each lecture. Click the Book Now buttons below.

$35 standard

$28 concession

$28 Institute and National Gallery Member

$17.50 students

Lecture 1: Lee Hillam & Ashley Dunn

Dunn Hillam Architects (NSW)

Wed 4 Sep 2024, 6pm AEST

The main doors will open at 5.45pm for a 6pm start.

Dunn Hillam are a respected architecture and urban design team that believes architecture can be a force for good. It’s this belief that informs all we do, continually challenging and inspiring us. How can we use resources more intelligently? How can we improve the lives of people through well designed buildings and places? How can clever, thoughtful architecture help solve today’s challenges? Our work is all over Australia, from the centre of Sydney to some of our most remote places. Our past and current projects include museums, art galleries, libraries, social housing, precinct wide strategic plans and adaptive reuse of heritage places.

Lecture 2: Ka Wai Yeung & David Kaunitz

Kaunitz Yeung Architecture (NSW)

Wed 11 Sep 2024, 6pm AEST

The main doors will open at 5.45pm for a 6pm start.

David Kaunitz and Ka Wai Yeung are a wife-husband team focused on facilitating high quality architecture in some of the most disadvantaged communities and First Nations People in Australian and Asia – Pacific. Underlying this is a deep commitment to participatory design and local construction. Kaunitz Yeung Architecture has created a new paradigm that shows high quality, international award-winning architecture is not a matter of cost, but of commitment. They have a significant body of award-winning architecture and have worked in more than 40 Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island communities, 200 Pacific Island communities as well as in Asia. This includes prestigious awards such as the UIA Vassilis Sgoutas Prize, the highest architectural award for working with underprivileged communities. Each project is co-designed in an authentic partnership with communities, NGOs, and Government Agencies. They have developed methods of engagement that enables all sections of the community to be heard and involved. By involving, the architecture is imbued with culture, integrated with place and reflective of the community’s history, hopes and aspirations.

Lecture 3: Adam Haddow

SJB Architecture (NSW)

Wed 18 Sep 2024, 6pm AEST

The main doors will open at 5.45pm for a 6pm start.

At SJB, the scale and nature of our work varies greatly – from significant urban developments to intimate rural residences; from implementing and revising planning processes to reimagining public parkland. When we design, we think about every experience. Our work is based on a simple guiding principle: empathy. We pride ourselves on the strength, quality and longevity of our professional relationships and cultivate an inclusive workplace where diverse perspectives and talents can flourish.

Lecture 4: Fiona Dunin

FMD Architects (VIC)

Wed 25 Sep 2024, 6pm AEST

The main doors will open at 5.45pm for a 6pm start.

Our architecture and interiors tell the stories of the place on which it resides, and the stories of the people who occupy the place, both past and present. We develop site sensitive, sustainable design responses embedded with the particularities of our client, which maximises the natural amenity of the home to elevate a greater sense of wellbeing and connection to place.

Our design response oscillates between the pragmatic and the poetic, always striving for unique creative responses which are engineered for the local conditions.